A widely employed poultry trussing device is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,112,515 and numerous improvements thereof have been patented, as shown, for example, in my U.S. Pat. No. 4,615,075. Aside from ease of attachment and assurance of poultry leg retention, it is important for devices of this type to accommodate a relatively wide range of poultry sizes. Thus turkeys, for example, may vary in size from about twelve pounds to twenty some odd pounds and more, so that the size and length of the legs to be retained or trussed are quite different. Additionally, the processing of poultry, particularly for freezing, often includes steps which may tend to unseat trussed legs.
There is shown and described in my copending U.S. patent a Application Ser. No. 041,975 an improved retainer particularly directed to positively locking of poultry legs in trussed position and the present invention provides a further improvement thereover. Specifically, in the attachment of a trussing device it has been found that, under certain circumstances and with certain sizes of poultry, portions of the device may be prematurely bowed outward or may slip from the hocks of legs being trussed. In addition, processing of quite large poultry may possibly result in failure to properly engage the creases of the hocks of the legs and the lower retainer strap may fail to reach entirely across the underside of the hocks.